Officials forced to reveal mad-cow disease scare

By MARTIN JOHNSTON, RUTH BERRY and AINSLEY THOMSON

Public health officials last night were forced to disclose details about a man with a rare brain-wasting condition in a bid to dispel damaging rumours about a foot and mouth outbreak.

The 26-year-old man is in Waikato Hospital with what specialists suspect may be "variant" Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), thought to be caused by eating beef from mad-cow infected animals.

The hospital will not talk about his condition, but the Health Ministry said last night that the man sought medical help for his condition in December. The disease has no known cure.

"He's unwell and needing care," said the Director of Public Health, Dr Colin Tukuitonga.

Dr Tukuitonga said the ministry had to go public about the issue, to help dispel mistaken reports from Britain about a foot and mouth outbreak in New Zealand.

The ministry had been told of the man's situation last week, and would have preferred to await the test results before making a public statement, he said.

The foot and mouth reports - which caused the dollar to plunge 1c - were "clearly a consideration" in the decision to make the announcement last night.

Worryingly for New Zealand, the man has never been to Britain, where 48 of the world's 50 known cases of variant CJD occurred and the scene of a mad-cow panic in the 1990s.

"He may have been to Australia, but we can't confirm that," said Dr Tukuitonga.

This suggests he may have been infected by food eaten in New Zealand.

"If it is [vCJD], it's probably imported products," a ministry spokeswoman said.

Dr Tukuitonga said results of the tests - being done in Melbourne - for sporadic CJD could be ready as early as today. The results for variant CJD were about two weeks away.

Even then it might not be clear whether the patient had either of those diseases as the tests were new and not necessarily conclusive.

He might instead have an inflammatory brain disease.

The man had spent most of his life around farms in Taranaki and the Waikato, but there was no greater chance of a farm worker contracting the disease than anyone else.

Lending weight to the belief that the man has vCJD is the fact that he is young.

The disease - for which there is no effective treatment - has several types, including hereditary, sporadic and variant.

About three people a year in New Zealand die from the sporadic form, which usually affects people aged 50 to 65 and has an incubation period of 30 years or more.

Some cases have been linked to medical treatments, including human growth hormone, that are no longer used.

Patients die generally within three months of diagnosis of the sporadic form; those with the variant form die usually in just over a year.

Associate Professor Martin Pollock, of the CJD Registry at Otago University, said last night: "It's a frightful disease and it's so rapidly progressive."

CJD is a notifiable disease and Professor Pollock was told of the Waikato case two months ago.

A tonsil was removed from the man and sent several days ago to Australia's CJD Registry at Melbourne University for analysis.

Professor Pollock said the variant form, unlike sporadic CJD, went first to the spleen, appendix and tonsils.

It was often diagnosed as depression, or sometimes produced sensory symptoms such as tingling or numbness in the legs.

Often memory loss began after six months, followed by co-ordination and movement disorders.

"Then gradually the patient usually becomes mute and often has difficulty swallowing."

If the Waikato case is confirmed as variant CJD, Professor Pollock will contact the man's family and investigate his diet.

Blood Service national medical director Dr Peter Flanagan said the patient had not donated blood.

He said the Blood Service was informed and records were searched "exhaustively".



The Food Safety Authority is confident New Zealand foods are free of mad-cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE).

Executive director Andrew McKenzie said that since 1996 when it was suggested mad-cow disease could be transmitted to humans, extensive measures had been implemented to protect New Zealanders and their food supply from the disease.

In that year imports of all potentially risky meat and meat products from Britain were stopped.

New Zealanders were warned not to eat sausages, meat paste, or beef extracts such as stock cubes, gravy mixes, soups and soup mixes that had been made from British beef, or beef offal. In 2001, this was extended to other countries with the disease.

Mr McKenzie said there had always been a risk of variant CJD in New Zealand, from exposure to risk material in foods imported before 1996, and overseas travel.

Mad-cow disease is thought to have developed from "animal cannibalism" - the practice of feeding ground-up ruminant beasts, such as cattle, back to cattle. This is banned in New Zealand.

Meat New Zealand last night played down the threat of the man's illness being variant CJD.

Chairman Jeff Grant said it was more likely to be the naturally occurring form of CJD, which caused about three deaths a year in New Zealand, or a "completely unrelated" neurological disease.

"This is just a routine health matter, but we are mindful of the impact rumours and innuendo have on the markets and remind the markets of New Zealand's reputation."

Government ministers last night refused to comment, saying it was a public health issue.

A spokeswoman for Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton said there was no evidence, or reason to believe, that any New Zealand cattle herds were infected with BSE.

It is understood most cases in Britain have developed around villages where old-fashioned meat-dressing techniques are used, which has resulted in spinal fluid dripping over the meat. This does not happen in New Zealand.